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California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a new, legally binding reform agreement with the Vallejo Police Department last week. Scott Morris with the Vallejo Sun joins us to talk about what’s in the agreement, and why meeting it will be a tall order.
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Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Hey, quick announcement. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity. So if you got a passion for local news and podcasts, let’s talk. The deadline to apply is November 17th. The link to the app is in our show notes. All right, Here’s the show.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. Back in 2020, the Vallejo Police Department was in the spotlight for a series of killings. That’s when the State Department of Justice stepped in and a new police chief was hired to turn things around. The DOJ gave Vallejo police three years to complete 45 reforms. Now, those three years are up and there’s still a lot of work to do.
Rob Bonta: Californians are hurting. Trust has been broken and it won’t be repaired overnight, but it can and will be repaired if we work together, if we make go forward commitments to do better.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: The reformer police chief Shawny Williams, has since been pushed out and Vpd has been in the spotlight again for a viral video of an officer shoving a woman and punching her in the head for its staffing crisis and for reinstating the officer who was fired after the killing of Sean Monterrosa. Now the state DOJ is back again with more reforms for the Vallejo Police Department. Today, we talked with the Vallejo Sun’s Scott Morris about a court ordered agreement to reform vallejo police and the barriers to real change.
Scott Morris: The Department of Justice first came in to Vallejo just before Sean Monterrosa was shot.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Scott Morris is an investigative reporter and co-founder of the Vallejo Sun.
Scott Morris: After Willie McCoy was shot in 2019. There was this big push for, you know, something, something needed to be reformed in the Vallejo Police Department. The city had been required to fulfill 45 reforms under a contract with the Department Justice two starting in June 2020 that had a three year term on it that ended earlier this year. And according to DOJ, the city had completed about 20 of 45 recommendations for reform at that point. This was a kind of the next logical step in that process. You said he didn’t finish it. And so therefore, there needs to be some kind of oversight to make sure that the rest of this gets done.
Rob Bonta: The people of Vallejo deserve a police department that listens to them and guarantees that their civil rights are protected.
Scott Morris: Rob Bonta spoke at a press conference and it kind of announced this stipulated judgment. Vallejo City Hall last week.
Rob Bonta: We can’t allow for lapses in improvement. We need to keep moving forward. Continuing to make that progress. We can’t allow for complacency.
Scott Morris: In addition to the 45 required reforms, Bonta in this stipulated judgment has added ten new reforms that the department is now required to complete.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: So that’s the context in which we’re talking about this stipulated judgment. What the heck is a stipulated judgment? What does that mean? And can you help us make sense of that?
Scott Morris: A stipulated judgment is basically that this reform program that DOJ had been working on in Vallejo is now in front of a judge. So now is being kind of overseeing the judge who makes sure that there’s progress and the city is fulfilling its obligations. This and if not that, there could be potentially legal consequences for not fulfilling their obligations here.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What are then these changes that are supposed to happen under this new court supervised agreement? What are some of the the big ones that people in Vallejo might be interested in hearing about?
Scott Morris: So some of the stuff that it adds has to do with when officers can conduct searches, when they can stop people and whether they can search them when when once they’ve stopped them. You know, there’s all these reforms in terms of bias and policing. Another thing that they’re required to be doing now is they’re going to be conducting audits of incidents when officers point firearms at anyone or brandish a firearm. And so they’re going to be looking at that and making sure that, you know, officers are doing that for the right reasons. And they’re not just like pulling their guns in situations where it’s unnecessary. And then, you know, just simple stuff like soliciting feedback from the community or engaging community members in their promotions.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: You mentioned that the village police department has completed less than half of what was originally required of them. Now, there are these new reforms that the attorney general wants them to complete. They now have five years to do it. But why hasn’t the Vallejo Police Department been able to implement some of these before this stipulated order?
Scott Morris: Yeah, that’s a complicated question. And and kind of depends who you ask. But press conference, the interim police chief right now, Jason Ta, kind of blames staffing shortages on a lot of it.
Jason Ta: We have a staffing shortage. There are short term strategies that we are looking towards right now to to address that.
Scott Morris: And he said there’s a lot of things he would want to do that he hasn’t been able to do.
Jason Ta: So as the attorney general said that, you know, our staffing is not an excuse to not advance some of these changes forward as times, you know, you know, and the public knows that administrative responsibilities sometimes take kind of second priority.
Scott Morris: You know, in the three years that this had been going on, I mean, for the first two and a half, there really wasn’t a lot of progress on this that I think that there was only two reforms that have been completed. You know, as of maybe at the middle or late last year, you know, one of the reasons for that is that there’s been pushback from the Vallejo Police Officers Association. The Police Officers Association has had enormous power in that city. Anything that changes the working conditions of Vallejo police officers is subject to a beat and confer process. So that can include policy changes, that can include kind of new oversight, that can include shift changes, that can include, you know, whether they work in an eight hour or 12 hour shift.
Scott Morris: Any action by the city council, by the city government enters that process and then they have to reach some kind of consensus with the Vallejo Police Officers Association, but so that these negotiations can go on for a very long time. That’s also just something that’s like generally true of union contracts that like kind of if you want to make some change in the working conditions, you just have to run it by the union. It’s just difficult in this particular context when you’re trying to implement some kind of reforms and then you have a police officers association that’s hostile to that.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: One big reform Vallejo police have yet to fully implement is the creation of an independent police commission, a civilian body whose job is to oversee the department. City councilors have already agreed on what a commission would look like, but it hasn’t taken off because of pushback from the police union. The union has even blocked efforts to hire more civilians, including a civilian hired to handle communication with the public, as well as efforts to hire an interim police auditor while a plan to build the commission was coming together. And as the department tries to meet all of these reforms, the opinion of the police union is going to matter a lot moving forward. What has the play said so far in response to this announcement by the attorney general?
Scott Morris: The day that this came out. The play, you know, put out a press release, you know, once again complaining about a staffing shortage and said that the blowback of reform will further play out. And if past consent decrees indicate anything, it’s only the citizens of Vallejo will be left behind in the process. So, you know, almost kind of a life threatening statement there in terms of like, you know, if you hold us back with this kind of reform things to the people of L.A. who are going to suffer.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What have elected leaders, what have they been saying about this announcement?
Scott Morris: This has been well received both by the city council and by the, you know, leadership of the city of Alejo. They’ve been supportive of this and have pledged to work cooperatively in this effort.
Mayor Robert McConnell: Police reform, consisting of a change in daily culture is not easy. It is often said that culture will eat programs for breakfast.
Scott Morris: Mayor Robert McConnell spoke at the press conference with Robert. And, you know, he kind of outlined and said that he was supportive of this effort.
Mayor Robert McConnell: I now call upon the leaders of the Vallejo Police Officers Association, future Vallejo council members, future mayors, future staff and all candidates for council and indeed the entire populace to not only support what needs to and shall be done, but to even do it faster than the anticipated five years.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I mean, Scott, it does seem like this is one of the biggest attempts by Attorney General Rob Bonta to really come in and do something about what’s happening in the Vallejo Police Department. I guess how do you how are you making sense of this?
Scott Morris: You know, John Burris, a civil rights attorney in Oakland, he had released a statement because he sued the Vallejo Police Department numerous times over a lot of the issues that have come up here. And he sued the Oakland Police Department in the early 2000, had a court ordered reform agreement that, you know, has been going on for more than 20 years now. And so, you know, he pointed out that that in itself really doesn’t implement change in a police department.
Scott Morris: I think there’s reasons to think that, you know, the Department of Justice has some responsibility for delaying here. And in Vallejo, there’s a very prominent example of Sean Monterrosa that the DOJ or over two years ago agreed to pick up that case. But now it’s been two and a half years in the Department of Justice, and there’s still this not an answer about whether that officer is going to be charged or not. If the goal is accountability for loyal police officers or independent investigations, that is a really big thing that’s really in the Department of Justice’s control right now that they have not managed to get done.
Scott Morris: So, you know, to kind of come in with with this big expansive thing, but not to be able to do this very specific thing, kind of makes me have questions about. What the Department of Justice has been really able to accomplish here so far, what the Department of Justice is able to accomplish in this space in general, given the delays in investigations throughout California.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Right. The and that is one of the more important things for I know at least the families of those impacted by police violence in Vallejo. Is that accountability part of it? Right. I mean, so I guess, Scott, can the DOJ force Vallejo Police to change? And if so, what? What is it going to take?
Scott Morris: I mean, look like, you know, if the Vallejo Police Department historically has been in charge of it’s investigating itself after serious incidents and kind of has been this really insular space, like I think that there’s certain leadership in the department could force a change. But I think that the change really at the end of the day needs to come from within. Now, external pressures can certainly affect how they approach things. But, you know, I think that whether or not it can really force a change, I’m not so sure about that. More.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, Scott, thanks so much for joining us.
Scott Morris: Thanks for having me.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was Scott Morris, an investigative journalist and co-founder of the Vallejo Sun. This 40 minute conversation with Scott was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo; he scored this episode and added all the tape music courtesy of the audio network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.
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